3 ms·

Lithium is element #3 on the periodic table so it's very simple and should be universally abundant. Literally in the universe, unfortunately not on earth.

nickcw 3y ago
There is a lot less Lithium in the universe than you might expect being element #3 There is also a lot less Lithium in the universe than our models predict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem
- willis936 3y ago
  This stinks of bad science. All of the observations come from stars. "Older stars seem to have less lithium than they should, and some younger stars have much more." "BBC Science Focus wrote in 2023 that "recent research seems to completely discount" such theories; the magazine held that mainstream lithium nucleosynthesis calculations are probably correct." I am unconvinced.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
arbitrandomuser 3y ago
Helium is no 2 , and that too is pretty scarce on earth , but again helium is a very light gas and simply shoots out of the atmosphere eventually, Why is lithium rare
Tuna-Fish 3y ago
Lithium is not very universally abundant. You cannot estimate abundance by atomic number like that. The big bang produced mostly hydrogen and helium, with traces of lithium and beryllium. The elements heavier than that are mostly produced by stars, and the physics of fusion have a massive impact on what elements, specifically, get made. Free protons join together to become helium-4 much more readily than any other fusion process, meaning that by the time heavier things start forming, the raw material is entirely ⁴He. This means that things that are easily made of ⁴He are dramatically more common than anything else, making the most common isotopes after ⁴He oxygen-16 (4 alphas), carbon-12 (3 alphas, less common than oxygen because it's less stable and easily picks up another alpha), neon-20 (5 alphas), and iron-56 (14 alphas to nickel-56 which immediately decays twice through β+ to produce ⁵⁶Fe). Iron is so high up above all the other intermediate steps, because it's the last stop: In heavy enough stars, the entire core converts to iron, and reactions past that are energy-consuming, not energy-producing, so after that the star collapses. Lithium is not on any of the major stellar nucleosynthesis pathways, which means it's only produced by exceptional processes, making it roughly as universally abundant as the other stuff that is made by exceptional processes, like scandium or gallium or zirconium. But none of that matters, because: Lithium is abundant and easy to extract in the earth's crust. While there's not that much of it up there, there's plenty easy to extract down here, because it's so light and likes forming light compounds, meaning that a huge proportion of all the lithium of all the rocks that came together to form the earth is reachable to us. Lithium is not rare. Any statement about lithium batteries that bemoans the scarcity of lithium is doubly confused: Firstly, because lithium is simply not scarce. Secondly, because lithium is such a tiny portion of the battery, that despite being in the name, only a small fraction of the materials cost is lithium. Lithium price has had a few big spikes because mining is a very high-capital industry where spinning up projects is measured in years, if not decades, and we suddenly started using a lot more lithium in ~2010. Accordingly, the price has spiked from the ~$5k per ton (which is roughly in the same ballpark typical cost of extraction, where any abundant mineral prices end up at), to the heights of $37k per ton last year. Even at this high price, lithium was not even the most expensive material component in most lithium batteries, because typically only 1-3% of the battery's weight is lithium. But these prices won't last, because having the price of a commodity so high above the cost of extraction means that new mining projects are spinning up.
- defrost 3y ago
  Re: Lithium as a resource: USGS (2021): Five mineral operations in Australia, two brine operations each in Argentina and Chile, and two brine and one mineral operation in China accounted for the majority of world lithium production. Owing to overproduction and decreased prices, several established lithium operations postponed capacity expansion plans. Junior mining operations in Australia and Canada ceased production altogether. USGS (2023): Six mineral operations in Australia, one mineral tailings operation in Brazil, two brine operations each in Argentina and Chile, and three mineral and two brine operations in China accounted for the majority of world lithium production. Additionally, smaller operations in Brazil, Canada, China, Portugal, the United States, and Zimbabwe also contributed to world lithium production. Owing to the rapid increase in demand and prices of lithium in 2022, established lithium operations worldwide increased or were in the process of increasing production capacity. Sources: * https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-lithium.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-lithium.pd... * https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023.pdf Bonus British Geo. Soc. Global Li Map: https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/download/global_critical_metal_deposit_maps/G2122_052_V4CMYK.pdf https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/download/global_critical_m...
  - Tuna-Fish 3y ago
    Also from the 2023 USGS periodical: Lithium supply security has become a top priority for technology companies in Asia, Europe, and North America. Strategic alliances and joint ventures among technology companies and exploration companies continued to be established to ensure a reliable, diversified supply of lithium for battery suppliers and vehicle manufacturers. Brine-based lithium sources were in various stages of development or exploration in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, China, and the United States; mineral-based lithium sources were in various stages of development or exploration in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Congo (Kinshasa), Czechia, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, the United States, and Zimbabwe; lithium-clay sources were in various stages of development or exploration in Mexico and the United States.
chongli 3y ago
That’s not how it works! Lithium is a fuel that gets used up by stars immediately whenever it might be produced in trace amounts. Unlike hydrogen, lithium wasn’t produced in the Big Bang. So most of the lithium that remains in the universe is produced outside of the cores of stars through the interaction of cosmic rays with other matter. Needless to say, that’s not a very common interaction (relatively speaking). Now if you look at how larger stars operate (the CNO cycle [1]) you’ll see that it matches up with the higher relative abundance of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in the universe. Lithium, beryllium, and boron get “skipped over” in a sense. Furthermore, if you look at a graph of the relative abundance of all elements, you’ll note that odd-numbered elements are less abundant than even (with the exceptions of hydrogen and beryllium). This is called the Oddo-Harkins rule [2] and it may also be playing a role. Edit: I should also add that the third major process in stars, triple-α [3], involves the fusion of three helium-4 nuclei into one carbon-12 nucleus. This occurs in older stars that have exhausted most of their hydrogen fuel and so have built up a large core of “inert” helium. When their outward pressure from hydrogen fusion is no longer high enough to withstand gravity, they reach the much higher pressures and temperatures needed for triple-α fusion. Unfortunately for the lithium industry, there’s no chance of producing lithium this way since it is skipped over on the way to carbon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oddo%E2%80%93Harkins_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oddo%E2%80%93Harkins_rule [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process
- simplicio 3y ago
  Nitpick: Lithium was produced in the Big Bang, though in a ratio of something like one per billion compared to H production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem
hedora 3y ago
Lithium is extremely abundant on earth. Unless we start launching it into space, or start building up after covering the surface with buildings and roads, we’re not going to run out. Lithium production capacity is scarce however, since it’s a mostly useless element unless you’re building batteries out of it. Anyway, once cities realize that they need to stop taking water from rivers, we should be able to skim quite a bit of lithium from desalination plant waste water.
BobaFloutist 3y ago
I mean in that case Hydrogen fuel cells are clearly the future, just as soon as we manage to make our gravity well irrelevant.

nickcw 3y ago

There is a lot less Lithium in the universe than you might expect being element #3 There is also a lot less Lithium in the universe than our models predict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem

willis936 3y ago
This stinks of bad science. All of the observations come from stars. "Older stars seem to have less lithium than they should, and some younger stars have much more." "BBC Science Focus wrote in 2023 that "recent research seems to completely discount" such theories; the magazine held that mainstream lithium nucleosynthesis calculations are probably correct." I am unconvinced.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

arbitrandomuser 3y ago

Helium is no 2 , and that too is pretty scarce on earth , but again helium is a very light gas and simply shoots out of the atmosphere eventually, Why is lithium rare

Tuna-Fish 3y ago

Lithium is not very universally abundant. You cannot estimate abundance by atomic number like that. The big bang produced mostly hydrogen and helium, with traces of lithium and beryllium. The elements heavier than that are mostly produced by stars, and the physics of fusion have a massive impact on what elements, specifically, get made. Free protons join together to become helium-4 much more readily than any other fusion process, meaning that by the time heavier things start forming, the raw material is entirely ⁴He. This means that things that are easily made of ⁴He are dramatically more common than anything else, making the most common isotopes after ⁴He oxygen-16 (4 alphas), carbon-12 (3 alphas, less common than oxygen because it's less stable and easily picks up another alpha), neon-20 (5 alphas), and iron-56 (14 alphas to nickel-56 which immediately decays twice through β+ to produce ⁵⁶Fe). Iron is so high up above all the other intermediate steps, because it's the last stop: In heavy enough stars, the entire core converts to iron, and reactions past that are energy-consuming, not energy-producing, so after that the star collapses. Lithium is not on any of the major stellar nucleosynthesis pathways, which means it's only produced by exceptional processes, making it roughly as universally abundant as the other stuff that is made by exceptional processes, like scandium or gallium or zirconium. But none of that matters, because: Lithium is abundant and easy to extract in the earth's crust. While there's not that much of it up there, there's plenty easy to extract down here, because it's so light and likes forming light compounds, meaning that a huge proportion of all the lithium of all the rocks that came together to form the earth is reachable to us. Lithium is not rare. Any statement about lithium batteries that bemoans the scarcity of lithium is doubly confused: Firstly, because lithium is simply not scarce. Secondly, because lithium is such a tiny portion of the battery, that despite being in the name, only a small fraction of the materials cost is lithium. Lithium price has had a few big spikes because mining is a very high-capital industry where spinning up projects is measured in years, if not decades, and we suddenly started using a lot more lithium in ~2010. Accordingly, the price has spiked from the ~$5k per ton (which is roughly in the same ballpark typical cost of extraction, where any abundant mineral prices end up at), to the heights of $37k per ton last year. Even at this high price, lithium was not even the most expensive material component in most lithium batteries, because typically only 1-3% of the battery's weight is lithium. But these prices won't last, because having the price of a commodity so high above the cost of extraction means that new mining projects are spinning up.

defrost 3y ago
Re: Lithium as a resource: USGS (2021): Five mineral operations in Australia, two brine operations each in Argentina and Chile, and two brine and one mineral operation in China accounted for the majority of world lithium production. Owing to overproduction and decreased prices, several established lithium operations postponed capacity expansion plans. Junior mining operations in Australia and Canada ceased production altogether. USGS (2023): Six mineral operations in Australia, one mineral tailings operation in Brazil, two brine operations each in Argentina and Chile, and three mineral and two brine operations in China accounted for the majority of world lithium production. Additionally, smaller operations in Brazil, Canada, China, Portugal, the United States, and Zimbabwe also contributed to world lithium production. Owing to the rapid increase in demand and prices of lithium in 2022, established lithium operations worldwide increased or were in the process of increasing production capacity. Sources: * https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-lithium.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-lithium.pd... * https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023.pdf Bonus British Geo. Soc. Global Li Map: https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/download/global_critical_metal_deposit_maps/G2122_052_V4CMYK.pdf https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/download/global_critical_m...
- Tuna-Fish 3y ago
  Also from the 2023 USGS periodical: Lithium supply security has become a top priority for technology companies in Asia, Europe, and North America. Strategic alliances and joint ventures among technology companies and exploration companies continued to be established to ensure a reliable, diversified supply of lithium for battery suppliers and vehicle manufacturers. Brine-based lithium sources were in various stages of development or exploration in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, China, and the United States; mineral-based lithium sources were in various stages of development or exploration in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Congo (Kinshasa), Czechia, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, the United States, and Zimbabwe; lithium-clay sources were in various stages of development or exploration in Mexico and the United States.

chongli 3y ago

That’s not how it works! Lithium is a fuel that gets used up by stars immediately whenever it might be produced in trace amounts. Unlike hydrogen, lithium wasn’t produced in the Big Bang. So most of the lithium that remains in the universe is produced outside of the cores of stars through the interaction of cosmic rays with other matter. Needless to say, that’s not a very common interaction (relatively speaking). Now if you look at how larger stars operate (the CNO cycle [1]) you’ll see that it matches up with the higher relative abundance of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in the universe. Lithium, beryllium, and boron get “skipped over” in a sense. Furthermore, if you look at a graph of the relative abundance of all elements, you’ll note that odd-numbered elements are less abundant than even (with the exceptions of hydrogen and beryllium). This is called the Oddo-Harkins rule [2] and it may also be playing a role. Edit: I should also add that the third major process in stars, triple-α [3], involves the fusion of three helium-4 nuclei into one carbon-12 nucleus. This occurs in older stars that have exhausted most of their hydrogen fuel and so have built up a large core of “inert” helium. When their outward pressure from hydrogen fusion is no longer high enough to withstand gravity, they reach the much higher pressures and temperatures needed for triple-α fusion. Unfortunately for the lithium industry, there’s no chance of producing lithium this way since it is skipped over on the way to carbon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oddo%E2%80%93Harkins_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oddo%E2%80%93Harkins_rule [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process

simplicio 3y ago
Nitpick: Lithium was produced in the Big Bang, though in a ratio of something like one per billion compared to H production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem

hedora 3y ago

Lithium is extremely abundant on earth. Unless we start launching it into space, or start building up after covering the surface with buildings and roads, we’re not going to run out. Lithium production capacity is scarce however, since it’s a mostly useless element unless you’re building batteries out of it. Anyway, once cities realize that they need to stop taking water from rivers, we should be able to skim quite a bit of lithium from desalination plant waste water.

BobaFloutist 3y ago

I mean in that case Hydrogen fuel cells are clearly the future, just as soon as we manage to make our gravity well irrelevant.